Moon
The Moon, or Luna, is the only natural satellite of the planet Earth and the fifth largest satellite in the solar system. It, along with Mars, is the only other celestial body in the Sol System that is inhabited by sentient life, colonized by Earth. Following the Kessler Cascade, the lunar colonies remain functional and intact, but only at a fraction of their original activity. History Many ancient myths and religions have the Moon as a central object within them. The celestial object has been an object of worship in many cultures. Many ancient magical rituals involved moonlight or the lunar cycle, and in wizarding cultures the moon and its phases played a key role in society. It was believed that by seeing a full moon, werewolves would transform into their bestial forms. The moon would become an object of superstition for many, though plenty of societies recognized its traits and behaviors as being consistent and having a measurable effect on the environment. During the Age of Sail and the Scientific Revolution, the moon became a more closely studied object, and was studied closely in order to measure its dimensions and properties. The study of the moon and other astronomical objects greatly changed how many in society perceived the universe, especially wizardkind. In 1965, the United States of America landed the first sentient beings on the moon. In the following decades, continuous manned missions to Luna eventually culminated in the first colony being established in 1992, which has continued to expand and develop since then. Sometime in 2016 the Lunar Collision and Threat Prevention Defense Array was installed at Armstrong Lunar Colony, in the form of a massive laser that is intended to destroy rogue interstellar bodies should their trajectory put them on a collision course with Earth. 2030 During the Langford cognitohazard attacks, an attempt was made to evacuate Armstrong colony using the high cargo and passenger capacity of the Shenyang ISV, intended to take multiple trips in utmost secrecy to prevent the rescue operation from trending on social media and thus made a target for attack. On the first attempt, the Shenyang was destroyed along with Gagarin station, cutting off access to the Moon in the short term and rendering Earth unable to resupply or evacuate the colonists aboard. The resulting Kessler Cascade nearly destroyed the tether between the Moon and Earth, speaking in terms of colonization. The Collision and Threat Prevention Defense Array, a lunar based weapon meant to destroy asteroids and Earth-threatening objects, was sabotaged deliberately to prevent the Langford virus from compromising it and using it to target Earth, a fact that Kozan Greymoul was disappointed by. Shortly after, Armstrong Lunar Colony was later hit by the virus, and the resulting decompression killed most of the lunar colonists. In the aftermath of the crisis the Moon was recolonized with only 900 volunteers to keep the base and infrastructure maintained, as well as to manually man the Collision and Threat Prevention Defense Array. There were 15,000 inhabitants from various nations living on the Lunar surface, the vast majority of them located in the Armstrong Lunar Colony. Several research stations are present throughout the surface of the satellite, and the colony, in the aftermath of the Kessler Cascade, is now home to only a limited number of colonists due to difficulty traveling and from Earth. Plans were made to use the moon as a launching point for a proposed outer space mission to Mars, with the intent to construct the spacecraft in orbit of the Moon with the aid of the Armstrong Lunar Colony. With the massacre at Armstrong, such a future endeavor occurring is uncertain. Locations and Features Locations * Armstrong Lunar Colony